About

theHeart of a Seed: Sustainable Rehab Meets Midwifery Care

$32,100

pledged of $17,711 goal

243

backers

Campaign Status: Stretch Goal Funding

Now that we have reached the backing goal, we focus our energy toward meeting theHeart stretch goals. We need to raise $35,422 in total pledges to reach our Part 3 Stretch Goal. Once that pledge amount is reached you will have funded the finish work for two Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center Birthing Suites. The stretch goals truly are theHeart of this campaign, and your support is making this dream a reality. Let’s keep going!

You can find more information about the Part 3 Goal by scrolling down to the Stretch Goal sections.

theSEED - The Green and Main Pilot Project

The Story:

It starts with an old mixed-use building located in the Sherman Hill historic district of Des Moines, Iowa. This circa-1930 building once housed a thriving grocery on a prominent streetcar line; in 2005, it sat vacant, closed up, and falling into ruin.

Chaden Halfhill, in looking at this rundown, decrepit building, saw an opportunity to not only preserve a piece of this historic neighborhood, but to change how we re-develop ‘Main Street’ American buildings. The Green and Main Pilot Project was born.

The building had severely outdated electrical and plumbing systems and absence of gutters had allowed water for years to seep through the foundation into the basement - It was a rundown, neglected, leaky old building held together with mediocre repairs.

The mission of the Green and Main Pilot Project is to develop a common place two-story brick masonry building into a prototypical site for sustainable best practices that will inform others how to renovate buildings and neighborhoods in ways that will decrease our carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, promote better use of materials, and create self-sustaining communities that thrive. By reducing our impact, we can continue to protect our future and the future of generations to come.

Storm water practices are a key aspect of the buildings design. Many elements work together to keep rainwater where it lands.

As owner of Indigo Dawn, a real estate development company focused on sustainable community based development, and of Silent Rivers, a nationally acclaimed design/build company with a proven record of quality innovative design and construction, Chaden knew he had the experience and capabilities to tackle such a bold mission.

Since the groundbreaking this building has been touched by some of the most skilled craftsmen, artisans, and carpenters. Now, in the final phases, it needs your help to be completed!

Since the groundbreaking, over 80% of the building renovations have been completed! When finished, it is estimated the Green and Main building will be 75% more energy efficient than current national building standards, but Chaden needs your help to get there.

How you can help:

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This campaign is designed to fund the remaining items needed to complete the Green and Main Pilot Project by its late summer opening. These items include remaining exterior work that defines the buildings ‘presence’ in the community: exterior signage, defining property boundaries, and completing the entrance and outdoor patio retreat space.

The campaign also includes stretch goals specifically designed to support the building’s committed long term tenant: Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center. These stretch goals, the ‘heart’ and ‘significance’ of this project include the final touches to the two birthing suites, furnishings and material for theVillageLearningCentre and Sacred Commons, and two specific art installations that highlight the impact of this project on the community and the hope it signifies for future generations. This project, in its purest form, is about people: building community, changing a neighborhood, changing how we care for one another and for the spaces in which we dwell.

theHEART – Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center

The Green and Main Pilot Project has come a long way, and with your help it will be completed!

The success of the project so far has been due to many factors, but one of the most crucial factors has been the unwavering support of Chaden’s wife, Cosette Boone, since the project’s inception. Cosette not only shares in the mission of Green and Main, but is furthering that mission by committing Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center to be the long-term commercial tenant once the building is completed.

Cosette Boone, a Certified Nurse-Midwife since 2000 and graduate of the SBA’s Emerging 200 Executive Training Program, is the founder of Willowsong Midwifery Care and Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center. She opened Willowsong Midwifery Care in 2001 as a solo home birth practice with a strong dedicated team of women. The business grew dramatically and in order to serve the thriving birth community Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center was founded in October, 2012.

When Healing Passages moves into the commercial space, the Green and Main Pilot Project will embody a shared vision, one that came to life 10 years ago. Chaden knew that creating a building 75% more energy efficient than national building standards would mean nothing if it wasn’t being used to serve the community. Much like Chaden’s work to change building practices, Cosette and Healing Passages have also been a voice for change. Healing Passages not only challenges how we provide care to women and families around birth and well-woman care throughout life, but educates, supports, and connects women through community in theVillageLearningCentre.

Within theVillage, women teach women and share their wisdom to help others in their journey–through menarche, adolescence, childbearing, parenting, and mid-life.

Through the partnering of Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center with the Green and Main Pilot Project, Chaden and Cosette have been working to realize a shared vision: to facilitate a paradigm shift toward safer more sustainable birth and building practices by uniting urban revitalization with conscientious and intentional building models and women’s care.

theSeed is the Green and Main Pilot Project, but theHeart of that seed is to shift the paradigm of how we build community, care for one another, and craft the spaces in which we dwell.

Presence: Fulfilling basic needs – must be completed to fund the campaign ($17,711)

Part 1: Nurture the Soil that Sustain Us – ($6,765)

The Part 1 Funding Goal has been reached!!! The support of all who have pledged is overwhelming. Please keep sharing!! Help us hit our backing goal of $17711 and beyond to the stretch goals - theHeart and Significance of this project!

Dressing the Site ($2,584) – Completing all exterior signage to help inform and educate visitors about the impacts of storm water practices and land stewardship.

The relationship between a home and its environs is compelling, connecting occupants, neighbors and visitors with the surrounding ecology. While the building will serve to support its occupants, the ecological services of this brown-field site reclamation may well be the most important lesson from, and potential influence of, this project.

Addressing the Edge ($4,181) – Completing exterior requirements: fabrication of a historical fence, installation of a garbage/recycling area, pouring of concrete retaining wall, and establishment of the remaining native plants.

The edge of the site establishes a crucial, never-ending relationship with surrounding neighbors: the historical neighborhood in which the parcel exists, and the urban municipality supporting this signature development. Restoring a clear boundary between properties is imperative, one that reinforces the ecological intent of Green & Main while providing a beautiful, considerate transition.

Part 2: Plant Seeds of the Heart - Welcoming Inspiration ($10,946)

We are backed - the Part 2 Funding Goal has been reached!!! What amazing support! Please keep sharing!! Help us hit the stretch goals - theHeart and Significance of this project!

Impressing the Entry ($4,181) – Putting the finishing touches on the entry: inviting awnings, comfortable seating, and exterior treatments that honor the character of the building as well as embrace all that Healing Passages has to offer.

First impressions definitely matter, especially since we are introducing new ideas into the marketplace. The storefront is more than a façade; it is the beginning of a deep rooted journey into the path of the heart. New blinds provide individual privacy, while inducing the joy of light into the interior of our historic venue. Original transoms, combined with stained glass accents encourage dancing colors within the spaces inside. Signage introduces the world to the power of healing mothers, their children, families, and the broader communities that surround them.

The storefront is where the impact and theHeart of this project can be shared with anyone passing by.

Finessing the Perch ($6,765) – Filling in the vegetated roof and completing the solar deck.

Creating a space for retreat and repose is empowering and thoughtful. Help complete an outdoor space for intimate gatherings: a destination for yoga, for meditation, and quiet gatherings of Healing Passages' larger village. Boasting shade from the building’s solar array, this bird’s eye view of the native prairie below will be an unexpected destination. Not only do the deck and prairie highlight the inter-connection between interior and exterior spaces, but through the vegetated roof’s support of the prairie the importance and relevance of roof systems has never been more pronounced or thoughtful.

Spirit: The Stretch Goals - what inspires makes this bigger than ourselves

If funding has reach the stretch goals, that means the remaining items needed to complete the Green and Main Pilot Project by our late summer opening have been funded!
Yet, the building is nothing without its ability to be used for service to the community. The stretch goals are designed to support Healing Passages Birth & Wellness Center which will be utilizing the commercial space.

The goals facilitate birth, healing, education, community and growth. The impact of this project starts with the women and families who experience empowered care and support at Healing Passages in a space designed to reflect that intention. It then spreads to the greater community and beyond into national and international channels. One voice, combined with another, creates a larger voice that can be heard. Cosette and Chaden are asking you to be a part of this movement!

Part 3: Celebrate Life - Enhancing the Experience of Motherhood ($17,711)

Help us reach our Part 3 funding goal! Get involved at funding levels starting at just $1!

theWomb Birth Suite ($6,765.00) - The final application of the clay walls, applying finishes on the steel beam and concrete flooring, installing counters and cabinets for the midwife's tools, installing blinds for the windows, and installing a bed.

Drawing upon all the elements: water, concrete, steel, wood, and clay; this birth space evokes a womb-like presence that wraps the mother in warmth and love. When in labor, deep into her birth song, she descends into theWomb space beneath the earth’s surface into a sanctuary of soft light and subtle hues. The space is designed for privacy and the hard work before her. She moves in all directions, her bare feet touch the cold, smooth floor; she sinks into the deep hot water and hangs from the steel beam above her letting out her song. The bed, close to the earth is large and allows for her body to move and find its birth position. She is powerful. She is beautiful. She chooses where and how to bring her child into the world. theWomb is where she transcends.

laVillaLuna Birth Suite, a sacred space where the thought and intention of sustainable construction works together to create natural, empowering birth room.

laVillaLuna Birth Suite ($10,946) - The application of clay walls and completing fabrication and installation of two lofty ceiling-to-floor barn doors that will close, providing privacy from the main clinic while alerting all to the birth in progress on the other side.

When she is singing her song in labor and prefers to DANCE with her Village, this room is for her! Movement is evoked with light and color as the room takes hold of her spirit. She dances and sways on the wooden floor, sinks into the deep hot water and splashes her hot brow in the Mexican pottery sink. laVillaLuna is where transitions occur in our lives and often follows the cycles of the moon. Don’t be surprised if you find her in the full moon’s glow lost in the rhythm of her song.

The strength of a woman is encouraged by the village in which she resides and the wisdom shared with others. Creating a nurturing space that supports the warmth of heart, the joy of mama’s breast milk, the safety of privacy and supportive companionship for mothers and their newborns is paramount.

The Sacred Commons ($17,711) – Fabricating and installing custom furnishings that will define the room and serve to encourage the Harkness method of education. A welcoming center piece will highlight the beautiful grains of locally harvested Ash trees redirected from the landfills.

We all share the commons. At Healing Passages, the commons is the hub for community discourse. Evoking the strength of talking circles and facilitated conversations, this space helps amplify discussions that foster community and build bridges. When complete this space will embrace change and transition of human growth and our relationships with all that is living.

Significance: Stretching Further - community impact and the message of hope

Part 5: Amplification – Resonate the Spirit of the Seed ($46,368)

Nature’s Rhythms - Mosaic Mural ($17,711) – Fabricating and installing the mosaic mural, designed by artist Nicole James in collaboration with the Healing Passages birth community.The mural will be located on the building’s North exterior wall and will be visible from the street.

Cycles of life, cycles of the prairie: this tile mural will be a process piece with the community, that will allow members of this campaign and the larger community to participate in its making.

An early concept sketch by Chaden Halfhill of the Contemplation Sculpture. A piece honoring all babies: those still with us, those who have passed, and those yet to come.

Between Two Worlds - Contemplation Sculpture ($28,657) – Fabricating and installing the Contemplation sculpture, designed by Chaden Halfhill himself, and completing the sitting area west of the birth center, crafting an exterior get away for solace and retreat.

When you feel life inside a woman, watch a baby emerge from the womb, or hold a mother in your arms that has just said goodbye to the child that was once inside her, the message of 'Contemplation' is evident. The midwife’s work is the celebration of life as much as it is the celebration of spirit in all its forms. Although each woman has her own unique path with childbearing, the depth of a mother's love is the same for all who choose to walk it. The wall leading from the Sacred Commons into the prairie where our Willow stands is the point of BIRTH or the veil between two worlds. Our space is not complete without a sculpture honoring ALL the babies born into our hands, those babies that are still with us, those children who have passed on and those waiting to arrive, those that we call our ‘Spirit Babies’.

Part 6: Going Beyond – the Big Audacious Goal!

Dream Goal – the Seed of knowledge carried on the winds of support ($75,025) –Finalizing and publishing the Green and Main Best Practices guide book, continued data collection and research on the buildings cutting edge systems, and a new research project in partnership with Healing Passages Birth and Wellness Center to examine the effects of environment on birth.

Ongoing support and research for sustainable design, for small buildings, and effective rehabilitation. Success with the model of care that we see in building design and remodeling as well as evidenced-based medicine within birth and midwifery allows us to continue to draw the parallels between a holistic model of human health and how our spaces expand this model to reinforce care, well-being, and nurturing. Let’s restore the relationship between humanity and nature, so we can thrive.

Rewards of theHEART:

Cosette: If you have read this far we hopefully have captured your heart! Our rewards for giving to this project are meant to transform, to touch the lives of all of you who want to see this vision manifest and grow. This whole project is about theHeart space. It is where all healing begins. Healing the earth. Healing our homes. Healing the places where we work. Healing humanity. It is not hard to understand. It is a choice. You make a conscious choice to make a difference in your life on this planet, to be a part of theHeart energy and its healing power. Essential oil is the essence of a plant. It is pure nature, extracted from nature, experienced in a highly concentrated form.

theHeart oil is one reward that was created by us, for you, using a blend of several key essential oils that manifest the heart energy, and is a reflection of the collective heart energy of all that is living on this planet.

Carefully selected artifacts from the building's heart and soul have been added at various levels of giving to remind us from where we have come and to not forget.

The prairie seeds are from theHeart of the prairie and remind us of the hope of tomorrow and our stewardship responsibility for future generations.

A free download of Adam Hamme's book 'Stress-Free Sustainability,' a guide to help others handle the emotional aspects of bringing a new vision into reality. Adam is the founder of ecofluence and has been a long time proponent of the Green and Main Pilot Project.

Fine art prints by founder and artist Chaden Halfhill, as well as opportunities to use and experience the Green & Main Facility first hand show the personal connection and the how deeply your support is appreciated.

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When we CARE for one another, we cannot disconnect from being human, from the cycles of LIFE, for we all are connected to one another and to our planet. It is not sterile. It is organic. The power to HEAL, comes from these connections and this knowing. This is theHeart of why Healing Passages chose to become a part of the Green & Main Pilot Project. Not only does the building and the land upon which it rests work in synergy with and remind us as human beings of our connection to earth; so does the design and intent of the space reflect those connections. Every aspect of the interior was designed for what we do with women. We hold space and guide each other through all the passages of life. It needs to feel connected and organic as a gentle reminder to us all, that this is where all healing begins.

Jen Albright Creative

When we work in harmony with nature rather than in opposition to its forces, we better nurture our bodies, our buildings, and our communities.

And it all starts in the heart....

Risks and challenges

Chaden and Cosette: Bringing this vision into reality has been a hard fought journey, and there have been many points along this journey when we have almost given up. Not only we as individuals, but our respective businesses, our teams - wondering if this journey into the unknown was worth it. For 10 years we have met countless obstacles with resolve and creativity, and have always found a way to keep moving forward.

Chaden Halfhill and Cosette Boone have shown, through the many years of work already dedicated to this project, that they are committed to carrying it out to completion. It is only now, in the final phase, coming up against the final obstacle, that they are reaching out to you, their community, for help.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $377 or more
About $377

The Growth of Change

In a custom box made of salvaged wood, you will receive an historical bottle, found during excavation of the original building's foundation, full of hand-gathered native prairie seeds of the same lineage as those found in the Green & Main Urban Prairie. These seeds give you the opportunity to grow the fruit of this vision in your own community.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $4,181 or more
About $4,181

Food of theHeart

You will receive a one-of-a-kind personal experience at the Green & Main facility. Join the founding couple: Cosette Boone and Chaden Halfhill, for a home cooked organic farm fresh dinner on the Green & Main solar deck.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $6,765 or more
About $6,765

theHeart of a Seed

You will receive a live presentation by the Green & Main founding couple: Cosette Boone and Chaden Halfhill. They will come to your office, event, or home and share with you the story of the Green & Main Pilot Project, including how they worked to complete this visionary sustainable development project, its potential for worldwide application, and what it has taken to pursue their passions as partners in both life and business.